


The Song Under My Skin

by Jaune_Chat



Category: Avatar (2009)
Genre: 5 Acts Meme, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Happy, Singing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-13
Updated: 2012-12-13
Packaged: 2017-11-21 01:06:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/591716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaune_Chat/pseuds/Jaune_Chat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jake begins to understand what songs mean for the People.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Song Under My Skin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hitlikehammers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitlikehammers/gifts).



> Written for [Five Acts](http://heeroluva.livejournal.com/250594.html) for [hitlikehammers](http://hitlikehammers.livejournal.com/172620.html?thread=2153292) for the acts: artistry/singing, happiness, and a touch of angst.

Jake had never really sung, barring some marching cadences and a few bad karaoke nights fuelled by way too much beer. So much of music on Earth was vocoded and autotuned into submission that hearing a real human voice singing an honest song was considered quaint to the point of oddity. There weren't many people that enjoyed the classics, and Jake hadn't really been musically-inclined enough to care before Pandora.

But after Padora...

The Omaticaya sang, and they sang without instruments, without accompaniment, blending together in harmony that resonated with the huge trees of their home. Pandora seemed to sing along with them, the songs blending into the cries of the _ikrans_ that flew overhead, the _pa'li_ whinnies, or the trumpeting of the traveling _angtsik_ herds. The first time Jake had ever heard the People sing, he'd been moved, feeling something shaking in his chest. He felt tears stinging his eyes and he couldn't understand _why_ it affected him so much. He'd breathed too hard and too fast as he tried to keep himself under control and Neytiri had unexpectedly joined him in his hammock that night, holding him chastely as he shook, shivering himself to sleep.

He'd woken up in the launch pod with dried tracks of tears on his cheeks, and it wasn't until a year after they'd driven the RDA off the face of Pandora that he understood. 

The People were giving a ceremony of thanks, a lifting of the spirits of the dead and living alike, when Jake felt it again. Neytiri was beside him when it happened, the resonant feeling inside him. He'd been singing with the others, not terribly, but not perfectly either, and could feel emotion rising in him like a storm. It felt big, overwhelming, and he wanted to choke himself into silence and find someplace quiet to think, to deal with what was happening. It had been a year since Grace and Trudy had died defending Pandora, a year since Tsu'tey had asked him to be his Last Shadow, a year since Hometree had been destroyed. 

The Omaticaya had been busy since then, finding a new Hometree, rebuilding their home, teaching the new Na'vi and humans what they needed to know about Pandora. There had only been so much time to mourn. This ceremony was supposed to do that, join them together and let everyone divide the pain and share their joy as one. But Jake couldn't do that if he was going to collapse and start twitching at Neytiri's feet.

She sensed his flight and turned to grab his hands, keeping him next to her. Neytiri gripped his wrists and forced him to look into her eyes. She was still singing; Mo'at had taught her well, and most ceremonies were sung. Jake lost the words of the song, feeling himself shaking inside, unsure if he was about to laugh or cry or scream. He couldn’t speak and just tried to tell Neytiri without words, _I’m afraid. I don’t know what’s happening, and I’m afraid._

The rest of the Omaticaya’s voice rose around him, their song piercing him through, making the shaking worse. Neytiri’s voice was softer, but seemed to reach deeper inside him. She looked all around him, and he followed her gaze. They were in the middle of the circle, surrounded by the others of the clan, embraced in the folds of the new Hometree, whose living wood echoed their harmonies back at them.

He wasn’t alone.

Something clicked, and Jake realized why he’d cried the first time he’d heard the People sing. They weren’t _alone._ They didn’t cut themselves off from one another, but instead raised their voices as one, each one relying on each other, in harmony with themselves and the world around them. To the Jake Sully who’d first arrived on Pandora, that thought was so utterly profound that he hadn’t been able to articulate it. But his Na’vi body had known. It had just taken a lot longer for the rest of him to catch up.

Jake blinked his eyes and realized it was his birthday today. His first amongst his people, with his mate, with Eywa and Pandora and… The shaking seemed to converge into a bubble right under his sternum. He opened his mouth and let it burst out of him in full-chested song, loud and clear and bright with things he couldn’t name. Thanks and gratitude and relief and happiness and grief and love, all of it rising into Pandora’s twilight-dusk, twined with Neytiri’s voice as she sang with him. His voice, rough compared with her trained and practiced songs, still somehow managed to fit in just right. 

Neytiri smiled at him with her eyes as he joined in with the People, their songs echoing across the forest together.


End file.
